Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an acoustic material and a musical instrument.
Discussion of the Background
As an acoustic material for configuring vibration materials and the like for musical instruments, for example, various woods are used. As the vibration material for musical instruments, in particular sound boards, use of a specific kind of natural wood board depending on a type of the musical instrument is supposed to be preferred in order to obtain a better tone quality. As an example, Brazilian rosewood is supposed to be appropriate for back plates of guitars, and Norway spruce is supposed to be particularly appropriate for sound boards of guitars, pianos and violins. However, such natural wood boards are relatively expensive since the production amount is limited, and there is also the inconvenience of significantly varying quality with respect to each board.
Therefore, it is proposed to utilize as an acoustic material, a laminated veneer lumber (LVL) in which veneers obtained by cutting a natural wood to have a thin-plate shape are laminated by means of an adhesive (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. H06-262601). The laminated veneer lumber is relatively low priced since the most part of a natural wood except for parts that include a knot and/or crack can be used as a raw material. In addition, the laminated veneer lumber is advantageous in terms of the quality being relatively stable since variation of a raw wood can be averaged through laminating a number of veneers.
In general, the wood which is excellent in acoustic characteristics as a sound board for a musical instrument is considered to have vibration characteristics such as relatively high speed of sound (sonic speed) and a small loss tangent (tan δ). However, although conventional laminated veneer lumber can be used for providing musical instruments and the like within relatively low price ranges at further lower prices, due to an increase in loss tangent caused by using an adhesive, it is difficult to produce a musical instrument with which intermediate and advanced players who are particular about sound quality are satisfied.